


Five Half Lies and One Full Truth

by helloshepard



Series: helloshepard's TRANSFORMERS fics (2020- ? ) [8]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Borderline Plug N Play, Drinking & Talking, M/M, Making Out, Multi, Poor Life Choices, Pre-Poly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-22
Updated: 2020-04-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:08:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23792887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helloshepard/pseuds/helloshepard
Summary: If anyone asked, and he were inclined to actually answer, Soundwave would report that he didn’t remember who made the first move. He supposed, lying in a tangle of cables and the scent of ozone, he would have to tell Cosmos the truth. They both would.The truth was Prowl, optic bright with copper-infused engex and a sudden burst of bravery that would have put Optimus Prime to shame, had leaned over the desk and kissed him square on the mouth.
Relationships: Pre-Prowl/Cosmos/Soundwave, Prowl/Soundwave
Series: helloshepard's TRANSFORMERS fics (2020- ? ) [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1789297
Comments: 10
Kudos: 66
Collections: Prowl Week





	Five Half Lies and One Full Truth

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Prowl Week 2020; I kept this one separate since it's technically a part of an already-established series.

1.

If anyone asked, and he were inclined to actually answer, Soundwave would report that he didn’t remember who made the first move. He supposed, lying in a tangle of cables and the scent of ozone, he would have to tell Cosmos the truth. They both would.

The _truth_ was Prowl, optic bright with copper-infused engex and a sudden burst of bravery that would have put Optimus Prime to shame, had leaned over the desk and kissed him square on the mouth.

“Do you think…”

Soundwave had been in the process of taking another sip of engex, but as Prowl spoke, he paused leaving the glass frozen halfway between the desk and his mouth.

Prowl’s mind was…duller than usual. Toned down. And a little muddled.

But Soundwave still liked it.

Soundwave waited as Prowl mulled over his next words. It wasn’t impolite to take a drink when someone was _thinking,_ was it?

Soundwave wasn’t sure. He could count the number of times he’d been a social drinker on one servo, and each and every instance he had been expected to sit on the other side of a desk and agree with whenever Ratbat said. That kind of social drinking wasn’t particularly conducive to actually _drinking._

Hm.

“Things could have ended up differently, if I were you and you were me?”

“Yes.” A simple answer, though he knew that wasn’t the question Prowl meant to ask.

Prowl groaned and took another swig of engex. Soundwave could see the engex crackling in his mind. Watching it was…

Soundwave looked away. 

“If I were a Decepticon…” Prowl glared at his engex. “The war would’ve been over four million years ago.”

Soundwave nodded. He didn’t think Prowl actually wanted him to agree: calling someone like Prowl a Decepticon was a surefire way to get a punch in the face.

“That’s all I wanted to do,” Prowl muttered. “End the war. Save lives. Preferably both.”

Before Soundwave could respond, Prowl started talking again.

“Sorry. I’m not good company when I’m overcharged, am I.”

It wasn’t a question.

Soundwave looked up to watch the stormy clouds circling his head. Prowl frowned, and the scar on the bridge of his nose—

Soundwave heard his fans click on.

He looked away.

“I do not mind. Your—”

“My mind is _nice,”_ Prowl said, though there was no malice in his words. He sounded confused, as though he had never heard those words applied to him before. That was strange—Soundwave knew for a fact that during their time as a gestalt, the Constructicons paid his mind compliments. Vocally _and_ often.

Prowl finished off the glass and set it on Soundwave’s desk.

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“My mind.” Prowl rested his elbows on the desk and leaned forward. Soundwave forced himself to meet Prowl’s optic. “Why do you like it so much?”

“I cannot tell you,” Soundwave said. “You know that.”

“But you can show me.”

2.

Prowl was the one who made the first move, but it was Soundwave who knocked the desk over. He had a moment to feel equal parts stupidly embarrassed and foolishly _emotional,_ but any misgivings were quickly quashed by the feeling of Prowl’s mouth on his own.

They fell, tangled, to the floor. Prowl’s engine kicked up a notch, drowning out the sound of Soundwave’s gasp.

And now he was thinking about the desk. Soundwave pulled away to follow Prowl’s gaze—he was looking at the overturned furniture, thinking about _flipping tables_ of all things _,_ how Tumbler used to joke about bolting his desk down except Prowl was never sure if it was a joke or not and—

Soundwave kissed him again.

The distraction worked, but now Prowl was thinking about _him,_ which was a wholly intimidating thought. Without a direct connection (which Soundwave _really, really_ wanted, and was beginning to suspect Prowl _really, really_ wanted as well) the beautiful lines and angles were fuzzy, muddled by noise and engex.

Soundwave loved them

He canceled the battle protocols that had activated when Prowl lunged and was treated to the sight of Prowl perched on top of him. One hand traced the edges of his tape deck—did he _know_ it was sensitive, or was it just something to touch?

Soundwave imagined Prowl’s hand _in_ him. Touching circuits no mech outside of his cassettes were supposed to see, much less touch, tracing the contours of his docking ports.

He shuddered, and sat up to mouth the cabling on Prowl’s neck and was rewarded with a gasp that felt…oddly deliberate. Genuine, but unsurprised.

He blinked.

 _Number cruncher_ floated across both their minds.

Were it not for the hot flash of red embarrassment that followed the phrase, Soundwave would never have considered it an insult.

_Oh._

“You know what I am going to do,” Soundwave mumbled into Prowl’s neck. “You can predict it.”

“Within a—” Prowl yelped. He hadn’t seen Soundwave lift a hand to caress the sensory panels affixed to his back, Soundwave realized. _“Reasonable margin of error.”_

“If you can see it.”Soundwave felt the paneling twitch under his hand. Prowl nodded, and Soundwave _tasted_ the sensation of being touched in the back of his throat. “What am I going to do next?”

 _“Uh.”_ Again, Soundwave felt the weight of Prowl’s stare come to rest on his frame.

Soundwave hoped he would remember this in the morning. The line between _lowered inhibitions_ and _stupid drunk_ was a thin one, but neither he nor Prowl had ingested enough engex to cross it.

Probably.

“Um.”

Soundwave traced the length of the sensors on Prowl’s back, an action which elicited a hastily-silenced moan. “Do you _really_ want a comprehensive breakdown of your potential actions?”

“Maybe later.” Soundwave drank in the sharp certainty of Prowl’s mind. He’d never given Soundwave explicit permission _to_ snoop, but at this particular moment…Prowl didn’t seem to care. He wondered, for a moment, if Prowl could become to his anchor.

His Ravage.

His Megatron.

He had hoped Cosmos might be willing to accept that role, but Cosmos was…ubiquitous. Cosmos was everywhere, and nowhere, too easily able to slip between Soundwave’s fingers.

Prowl was clarity in a sea of static. And Cosmos _was_ the static, cocooning him and caressing his spark, fierce and gentle and—

Cosmos was going to _hate_ them.

Or worse…he would be _hurt._

Soundwave kissed the edge of Prowl’s jaw and wished could stop thinking. Just for a moment.

They should stop. Right now. Stop and pull away and come back to this when Cosmos was around, and then they could be _sensible_ about this.

Whatever was going on between them, Soundwave didn’t want to ruin it. _Prowl_ didn’t want to ruin it.

None of them wanted to ruin it, and Soundwave and Prowl were about to do just that.

3.

“My turn,” Prowl whispered, and raised a brow as Soundwave obediently leaned back, feeling the chill of unheated metal against his plating.

“Told you to stay out of my head,” Prowl muttered, though his optic widened when Soundwave smiled.

“You don’t mean it. Not now.”

“Tomorrow, when I do,” Prowl leaned forward until their breaths came together in a dizzying, tantalizing mix of near-sensory overload. “What then?”

“Your thoughts will be your own.”

Prowl was far too heavy for Soundwave to even consider attempting to sit up, but he had no real inclination to try.

“We should—”

Soundwave heard a _click_ and realized with a jolt of embarrassment that it had been his own interface protocols coming online. Prowl blinked, but didn’t seem particularly dissuaded.

He tried again.

“We should stop?”

Prowl froze.

“Cosmos,” was all Soundwave said, and Prowl nodded. But he didn’t move to get up, and Soundwave didn’t push the issue. Soundwave manually canceled the protocols and thanked the stars his cables hadn’t already unspooled—manually coaxing them back into his frame might have been _slightly_ more embarrassment than he could handle.

“If you are willing,” Prowl said slowly. “I would still like to know how you see things.”

A little too quickly, Soundwave nodded.

4.

“…oh.”

Soundwave felt his lips twitch. Prowl had gone still on top of him as his mind struggled to process the new wave of sensory data. Soundwave didn’t dare move or touch Prowl for fear of eliciting more sensation than his processor could comfortably handle.

“It’s a lot.”

Prowl steadied himself on Soundwave’s chassis, and nodded. Soundwave peeled back another layer of firewalls.

“It is.” 

The tenuous connection between them was just enough for Soundwave to get a glance at the blurry lines and numbers. Idly, Soundwave tugged at the cable connecting him to Prowl—as much as he would have relished the chance to be invited into Prowl’s mind and spend a few blissful minutes immersed in angles and pure data, this was for _Prowl._

The very notion of someone (Prowl) _wanting_ to see in his mind had Soundwave feeling a unique mixture of elation and nauseating anxiety. His fuel tank cramped painfully at the mere _notion_ of rejection, but Prowl—

“Shh.” More gently than he thought Prowl— _anyone,_ save for perhaps Ravage—capable of, Prowl touched the spot on his armor just above his fuel tank. “I understand. I think.”

Immediately, Soundwave relaxed. Several layers of stress-induced color that Soundwave had forgotten about faded. As he looked up at Prowl, the world became dizzyingly clear. Soundwave allowed Prowl to bypass every firewall save for the ones keeping guard over his vital functions. Mentally, he lay back and watched Prowl peruse his datafiles. Amusement zipped across their connection as he realized Prowl was going through his most recent memories, lingering over his reaction to Prowl predicting Soundwave’s movements.

Prowl frowned.

The colors snapped back into existence.

“I’m _not_ going to be Megatron,” Prowl snapped.

5.

“It is not like that.” But Prowl _knew_ that, didn’t he. He was in Soundwave’s _head._ At that moment, Prowl knew him better than any mech ever had. Except—

“Stop thinking about him.”

“Apologies.” But he hadn’t yanked Soundwave’s cable out of his waist port. Desperately, Soundwave clung to that fact.

“I’m not here to be your leader,” Prowl snapped, saying the word _leader_ like someone might say the word _incurable, late-stage cosmic rust._ “No. Full stop.”

“Not like that.” But they all _had_ been leaders, hadn’t they? Ravage had led him from the Dead End, showed him a new way of existing that wasn’t just _survival_. And Megatron had led him far, far beyond what he once would have deemed acceptable. “It helps,” Soundwave offered. “To have someone to focus on. Someone strong. Unique.”

“You said you would stay out of my head.” Prowl’s voice was quiet.

“And I will.”

To Soundwave, the truth smelled like ozone. And Prowl knew it.

Prowl snorted.

“You _really_ like my mind, don’t you.”

Dumbly, Soundwave nodded.

+1

Soundwave felt Prowl give in.

He watched as Prowl leaned forward to rest his elbows on the glass of Soundwave’s chest. Not for the first time, Soundwave was glad the cassettes were out for the night and wouldn’t be expecting him back at the habsuite.

“We shouldn’t have done this.” Prowl made no move to get up. Soundwave watched as he wrapped the cable around his finger, then let it unwind. “Not without…”

Prowl gave up all pretense of respectability and slumped against Soundwave.

“This is _hard,”_ Prowl mumbled into Soundwave’s shoulder. Soundwave hummed an acknowledgement. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Neither do I.”

He didn’t feel particularly better after admitting it. Enough of the engex had worn off that they were beginning to feel tired—and more than a little awkward.

He wondered how many times they would have to do this dance of engex and lowered inhibitions, only to be countered by the uncomfortable reality of sobriety. It wasn’t that getting drunk with Prowl _wasn’t_ nice (in more ways than one) but…

Soundwave moved to sit up. Prowl groaned his assent and began to slide off, but Soundwave shook his head.

Prowl was very nearly too big to comfortably sit in Soundwave’s lap.

He didn’t mind.

“Tell me,” Soundwave said, and Prowl looked up. “What am I going to do next?”

“Oh.” Prowl blinked, registering the question Soundwave had pushed over their connection. _“Oh._ Er, yes. I suppose.”

He tasted like gritty engex.

But Prowl _liked_ gritty engex, and Soundwave liked Prowl, so Soundwave supposed it was alright.

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback is always appreciated! TY for reading :)


End file.
